Cogent Healthcare, Inc. to Provide Inpatient Care Management Services to Baptist Hospital, Pensacola.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

LAGUNA HILLS, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Dec. 12, 2000

Award-Winning Florida Facility is Cogent's Second

Hospital Contract, Representing an Emerging Interest

from Hospitals in Reengineering Their Care Processes

Using Hospitalist Physicians

Cogent Healthcare Inc., the nation's leading provider of inpatient care management services to health plans, hospitals and health systems, has been selected by Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, a 492-bed hospital which is a unit of Baptist Health Care, to provide an inpatient care management program featuring hospitalist physicians to manage care for upwards of 7000 hospitalized patients each year.

"Our decision to implement this new program, and the selection of Cogent Healthcare as our partner in this endeavor, is driven by our conviction that this approach delivers better quality of care to patients," explained Craig Miller, M.D., Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs for Baptist Health Care, Pensacola. "We have a growing number of physicians who are requesting inpatient assistance with their patients -- they want to focus on delivering health care in their offices, rather than sharing time between their office and their hospital patients. We are also seeing quite a few admissions coming through the emergency room or from specialists of patients who do not have a primary care physician to follow them during their stay. Cogent's inpatient management program helps the community by having experienced, well-trained doctors already practicing in the hospital, who will be dedicated to taking care of patients while they are hospitalized."

Miller said that the Cogent reputation was instrumental in Baptist's choice of the company to design and implement their program. "We reviewed the types of programs in effect in our region, and feel that Cogent is the 'best practices' model for hospitalist programs," he explained. "We appreciate that the Cogent model, which emphasizes clinical interventions to deliver care in a timely manner, is also Internet-enabled, with state-of-the-art encryptions and securities, along with other benchmarks to assure patient and physician satisfaction, track readmission rates and measure results. Inasmuch as we have been an innovative health care provider and have led the nation in Press/Ganey Associates studies in patient satisfaction, we feel we ought to set the standard for inpatient care management as well."

The program, scheduled to take effect in mid-January, 2001, marks the second time that Cogent has contracted directly with a hospital. In 1999, the company announced the launch of its first program sponsored by a freestanding hospital, at St. Vincent Medical Center, Santa Fe, northern New Mexico's largest acute care facility. Hospitalist programs have, until recently, been primarily implemented on behalf of health plans.

"Hospitals are beginning to see the value in controlling their own hospitalist programs" said Michael Brouthers, CEO and President of Cogent Healthcare, Inc. "This is a result of the constant pressure hospitals are under to improve quality of care, reduce patient care errors, and make more efficient use of resources. Hospitalist physicians, supported by a sophisticated infrastructure of data information systems and clinical staffing, reduce the variability in the delivery of care, promote the use of 'best practices,' and eliminate barriers to timely care delivery. Our inpatient care management program also provides hospitals with the documentation that justifies the care plan for payors, thus reducing denials for payment and improving the hospital's cash flow."

Baptist Hospital, Pensacola is a not-for-profit tertiary care institution that is community owned and supported. The Cogent inpatient management program will manage all types of patients, including those insured under commercial, Medicare and Medicaid plans, as well as the unassigned and uninsured.

About Cogent Healthcare Inc.:

Cogent Healthcare, Inc. is a leading provider of services that improve the well-being of hospitalized patients, while reducing their associated costs through the creation and management of inpatient-based physician networks. Cogent Healthcare provides comprehensive programs in clinical care staffing, communication and data management that support the hospitalist physician in the delivery of inpatient care. In May 2000, Cogent Healthcare also launched the first Internet-based continuing medical educational program for hospitalist physicians.

In addition, Cogent is developing a network of resources to enhance on management throughout the continuum of care, addressing home care, sub-acute care, disease management and end-of-life issues. Its mission is to improve care and efficiency by reducing variations in care, establishing best practices, identifying and removing barriers to efficient care, and measuring outcomes.

Cogent Healthcare, Inc. is currently one of the largest inpatient care management companies, with contracts with more than 65 facilities covering 155 hospitals with 1,300 referring primary care physicians, covering more than 2,000,000 lives throughout the United States. In addition to traditional hospitalist programs, the company has a program with Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest HMO, which has 2.7 million members in Southern California, to provide hospitalists to handle emergency care sought by their members at non-Kaiser hospitals.

About Baptist Hospital, Pensacola

Baptist Hospital is a 492-bed tertiary care hospital, the largest in the Baptist Health Care network, a seven-hospital, non-profit chain in Northwest Florida and South Alabama, which sees its mission as providing superior service based on Christian values to improve the quality of life for people and communities served. Baptist Hospital provides a full range of medical, surgical and obstetrical services, as well as specialized critical care provided by the hospital's emergency center and three intensive care units: coronary, surgical and neurological intensive care. Baptist Hospital is equipped with state of the art laboratory, pathology and radiology facilities. They have been the recipients of numerous awards and recognitions, including the following: The USA Today/RIT Quality Cup, Top 1% of U.S. Hospitals in patient satisfaction, Press, Ganey Associates; National Leadership Award for excellence in patient care, Voluntary Hospitals of America; Marriott Service Excellence Award, Marriott and Modern Healthcare; Excellence in Healthcare Risk Management Award, Modern Healthcare; Most Wired Award for effective use of technology, Hospitals and Health Networks magazine; Bronze Award for best Internet health information, Health Information Resource Center, and The Nation's top 100 integrated health care networks, SMG Marketing Group.

What is a Hospitalist?

Hospitalists are physicians who specialize in the care of hospitalized patients. By being available around-the-clock, these specialists are able to attend to a patient's changing condition as it occurs rather than having care delayed until the primary care physician can arrive from his/her practice. The critical care skills of these specialists are important factors in helping today's more critically ill hospital patients get the level of care they need. Thus, hospitalists improve the quality of care patients receive and they enhance the efficiency of the care process. By delivering more efficient and timely care, the time the patient spends in the hospital may be reduced. Cogent Healthcare provides comprehensive programs in clinical care staffing, communication, and data management that support the hospitalist physician in the delivery of inpatient care.